On 21/04/12 17:07, emw wrote:
Hi all,
I'm in the process of developing a media handling extension for MediaWiki
that will allow users with WebGL-enabled browsers to manipulate 3D models
of large biological molecules, like proteins and DNA. I'm new to MediaWiki
development, and I've got some questions about how I should go forward with
development of this extension if I want to ultimately get it into official
Wikimedia MediaWiki deployments.
(...)
Given that, my initial plan for handling browsers
without WebGL enabled is
to fall back to a static image of the corresponding protein/DNA structure.
Seems
the appropiate thing to do.
Would requiring Python, GIMP and PyMOL to be installed
on the server be
workable for a WMF MediaWiki deployment?
Not ideal, but is probably workable. Still much better than relying (and
potentially DDOSing) on a third party.
If you could drop GIMP requirement, that'd be even better (why is it
needed?).
1. Once I get the prototype more fully developed,
what would be the
best next step to presenting it and getting it code reviewed? Should I set
up a demo on a random domain/third-party VPN, or maybe something like
http://deployment.wikimedia.beta.wmflabs.org/wiki/Main_Page? Or maybe the
former would come before the latter?
I'd go directly on labs.
2. PDB (.pdb) is a niche file type that has a
non-standard MIME type of
"chemical/x-pdb". See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protein_Data_Bank_%28file_format%29 for more.
We could detect the format. Don't worry about that.
3. If at all possible, I'd like to have the
molecular models be
interactive by default,
Does having model interactivity by default for WebGL-enabled users
sound feasible?
Maybe, maybe not. Needs testing. I'd wait after having the prototype for
deciding that default.
Thanks for your contributions!